Upgrade 2012 MBA from Lion to Sierra?

[johannnn]

A family's 2012 MBA is running 10.7.4.
I remember I hated Lion, but that Mountain Lion worked very well.
- Is it possible to update to Mountain Lion, or is it only possible to update to Sierra?
- If I upgrade to Sierra, do you think it will run slower or faster than Lion? (It's already a bit slow)

 

[chrfr]

A family's 2012 MBA is running 10.7.4.
I remember I hated Lion, but that Mountain Lion worked very well.
- Is it possible to update to Mountain Lion, or is it only possible to update to Sierra?
- If I upgrade to Sierra, do you think it will run slower or faster than Lion? (It's already a bit slow)

You'd have to pay to upgrade to Mountain Lion. Upgrading to Sierra will be free and won't be worse than Lion.

 

[jkehaniii]

A family's 2012 MBA is running 10.7.4.
I remember I hated Lion, but that Mountain Lion worked very well.
- Is it possible to update to Mountain Lion, or is it only possible to update to Sierra?
- If I upgrade to Sierra, do you think it will run slower or faster than Lion? (It's already a bit slow)

Update straight to Sierra, it shouldn't make it unbearably slow or apple wouldn't have included support for it in Sierra and High Sierra. It'll include security updates and better continuity across all their devices (if they update all the time).

 

[johannnn]

Update straight to Sierra, it shouldn't make it unbearably slow or apple wouldn't have included support for it in Sierra and High Sierra. It'll include security updates and better continuity across all their devices (if they update all the time).

I do agree that it will bring higher security, but unfortunately that's the lowest priority of this family member. Speed is the highest.

And unfortunately I have to disagree with "or apple wouldn't have included support for it". Apple have made iPhones (much) slower A LOT of times following updates, see for example https://www.cultofmac.com/404282/5-million-lawsuit-asks-did-ios-9-cripple-iphone-4s-devices/.

 

[jkehaniii]

I do agree that it will bring higher security, but unfortunately that's the lowest priority of this family member. Speed is the highest.

And unfortunately I have to disagree with "or apple wouldn't have included support for it". Apple have made iPhones (much) slower A LOT of times following updates, see for example https://www.cultofmac.com/404282/5-million-lawsuit-asks-did-ios-9-cripple-iphone-4s-devices/.

Okay you got me with the 4S on iOS 9 but for Macs there are a lot of cases of people complaining that apple did not support their device there's tons of videos of people running unsupported machines on sierra with proof they work fine so a supported machine should have no problem

 

[redheeler]

Mountain Lion may run well, but it has aged pretty badly. It can't even support an up-to-date browser without modifying it first (see link in my signature). Same with staying on Lion, obviously.

Since the MacBook Air has an SSD, I'd just update them to Sierra. Don't think performance would noticeably suffer coming from Lion.